I will argue that summer homework is detrimental to students, while my opponent will argue that it is beneficial. This debate will not focus on legality, but rather what is better for the students. The debate will focus only on high school, since I have not been to college and cannot speak from the perspective of a college student. BOP is shared. First round is acceptance.

C1. Summer should be time off
The purpose of summer vacation is to give students time off of school. In assigning homework, students are unable to be free of school, since they need to do summer homework. Even in the moments that they are not doing homework, it is still on their mind, and makes summer less enjoyable. In a survey done by Edutopia, an overwhelming majority of people voted that there should be no summer homework (1). While one might assume that these results came from teenagers, the comments section tells a different story. Most of the people who voted are parents and teachers. The parents discuss how they have less time for family vacations. They talk about how their kids don't go outside as much, or have as much time for whatever job they may have. If education is meant to prepare students for the real world, preventing them from doing their jobs is extremely counter-productive.

C2. Students wait until the last minute
The misconception about summer homework is that students are able to retain knowledge better over break. The thinking is that if there is no homework, students will forget everything by the time school begins. But speaking from experience, I know that most students, including myself, wait until the very end of summer. Every year, at the end of summer, my Facebook news feed is flooded with students talking about how it's the last week of summer and they still haven't started. This is not exaggeration. So if students are waiting this long to even start their summer homework, how are they going to retain any more than if there was none? They wouldn't. Summer homework creates unnecessary stress at the end of summer and doesn't even accomplish its purpose.

Since BOP is shared, my opponent will have to provide both rebuttals and contentions in the next round.

re: C1. The opponent uses circular reasoning. "The summer break was made for the purpose of giving students time off" --> "Therefore, there should be no homework over summer break." Maybe we should shift the purpose of summer break practices to benefit students more. The opponent uses a flawed axiom.

And people's votes on an anonymous website do not matter. Why? We do not know of the study's validity, since it is an informal poll... And the opinions of people who go on that website do not, in themselves, uphold or invalidate any idea.

re: C2. People can procrastinate during the school year, too; this is irrelevant. As long as the work is completed, a student can be refreshed mentally over the summer.

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1. Countries with higher academic scores and better education systems give student fewer breaks and give them more hours. In Korea, they make students go to school on most Saturdays. [1] Clearly there is a correlation.

2. There are many jobless teachers around the country. Many teachers are being laid off. A good way of dealing with that is to create new jobs at public schools by establishing a summer curriculum.

1. Summer should be time off
My opponent accuses me of using circular logic and a flawed axiom. The axiom that summer break was meant for time off is not flawed because it is true. The conclusion that homework should thus not be assigned during summer break is not circular logic, but a logical conclusion based on a logical axiom.
As for the study, my opponent talks about opinions not mattering. The whole point of a debate is the exchange of contrasting opinions. As for the people who commented, the teachers can be considered experts on the subject, and the parents too in some cases. Also, my opponent's only source was Wikipedia, which while reliable, is still informal and written by people who just happened to go on the website and make a change. The website I sourced came from a real educational foundation.

2. Students wait until the last minute
First, my opponent says that students procrastinate in the school year as well. This has nothing to do with the subject. My argument was that if a student procrastinates to within days of the beginning of the school year, they are unable to retain information over the summer, since the information is already gone. Next, my opponent says that if the work is completed, a student can be refreshed mentally. This is not true. Homework creates stress, which is what summer is supposed to prevent. Unnecessary stress does not mentally refresh people. It drains them.

Rebuttal:

1. This debate is about what goes on while school is not in session, so saying that better schools are in session longer is completely irrelevant. Also, South Korea, as of this year, is ending Saturday schooling (1). This means that even the best schools are realizing that time off is beneficial. Next, my opponent says "Clearly there is a correlation." The correlation is not clear, and has nothing to do with summer homework.

2. My opponent claims that summer homework would create new teaching positions. The truth is the opposite. Summer homework makes it so teachers don't have to do as much work at the beginning of the year. Thus, the schools would not have to hire as many teachers, because there is less work for them to do.